(Publications)

This article reports the second stage of exploratory study regarding the adoption of information technology outsourcing (ITO) by Mexican companies. The article aims to answer the following questions: What are the managerial practices of ITO used by Mexican companies? And what is the impact of those practices on the results and benefits of ITO? Based on a survey of 152 companies, the study reports the following results: Most of the companies missed to adopt best managerial practices of ITO. However, failing to adopt best practices did not prevent companies from reaching positive ITO results. The main benefits reported are that ITO helped to reduce costs, foster organizations’ capabilities to face market changes, take advantage of the providers’ experience, and achieve scale economies. These results are important to practitioners and researchers.

This paper presents a case of a campus based online teaching experience. The case is based on a Management Information Systems course for large sections in two modalities: online and hybrid settings with 30 and 70 students respectively. The purpose of the project is to identify the challenges in teaching large online sections. The main results are that given the current technology, we can overcome the class size limitations for on-line courses; that according to active learning experiences, we can use active learning recommendations in online course design; that given technologies like Blackboard and Breeze, students’ expectations and needs can be properly fulfilled with large sections; that given differences in course goals, only cognitive based courses can take advantages of online teaching; and that given the characteristics of a Management Information Systems course, it can be taught online. These results are important for researchers, professors, and university authorities.

The adoption of information technology (IT) outsourcing has been growing across countries and industries. Steadily, organizations adopt IT outsourcing to reduce costs, leverage organizational assets, or compete strategically. This study presents the factors considered by Mexican organizations to outsource IT services. Specifically, the study aims to identify key factors that promote or inhibit the IT outsourcing decision, and to find out if these factors are the same for companies that both have adopted and have not adopted IT outsourcing. Based on a survey of 152 companies, statistical analysis shows that the key factors to adopt IT outsourcing are: to reduce costs, number of employees, and IT investments; and to improve business processes and customer services. On the other hand, the main inhibitors for IT outsourcing are: the cost of the IT partnership with an IT service provider and the information security regarding confidentiality and control of operations. Last, the most cited examples of IT outsourcing were Help Desk/Call Center support, projects of business-to-business development, and management of applications to support customers.

This paper presents the results of an exploratory case study on the benefits and challenges of a community-based research approach to service-learning. The study’s context is the development of a classroom web site by a college student and an elementary school teacher. The findings show that community-based research promotes student learning and facilitates the adoption and use of web technology by the school teacher. However, there are social and technological challenges of integrating community-based research as a service-learning strategy into a college course.

Service-learning integrates coursed-based academic learning with community service. This form of experiential learning is becoming more prevalent in higher education as academic institutions strive to enhance student learning while providing meaningful service to the community. This study investigates the impacts of service-learning in a junior-level IS web development course on student learning outcomes. The study also explores the use of community-based research in web-based systems development. The study’s context is a project to develop a web-based system for an elementary school classroom. Our findings propose an integrated, multidimensional concept of student learning that links the academic with personal and interpersonal learning outcomes. The academic dimension of student learning includes domain-specific and general academic knowledge and skills. The interpersonal dimension of student learning encompasses communication, collaboration and leadership skills, and the personal dimension consists of self-knowledge and personal efficacy. The service-learning strategy of community-based research promotes student learning and transforms the student into an engaged and active learner. Furthermore, community-based research is an effective approach to supplement the software development methods of prototyping and joint application development in a web-based systems development project. The study’s findings provide a framework for structuring effective service-learning experiences in the systems development domain of an Information Systems curriculum.

Latin America in spite of some great strides lags economically-advanced nations in its research on information technology. This special issue of Information Technology for Development on “IT Advances in Latin America“ provides insights into the practices and applications of IT, points to problems and constraints, offers findings and solutions that can be useful to practitioners, and indicates how IT is helping in development of Latin America and its countries.

The introduction has two parts. Part 1 examines the status of IT research in Latin America. It suggests how IT investigators in Latin America can be motivated and encouraged; institutional networks developed; topics identified; and language differences overcome. It suggests steps for journals, conferences, and granting agencies to support the region’s IT research productivity. Part 2 introduces the articles in the special issue. All the authors of this issue are from Latin America and were located in the region during the research they report on. This supports a goal of this issue to encourage investigators in the region and their insights and discoveries based on the environment, cultures, business and societal patterns particular to of Latin America.

1.1. IS RESEARCH IN LATIN AMERICA

Latin America presently has a population of 566 million persons (World Population Data Sheet, 2006) and is projected to have 700 million by the year 2025. By comparison, this is about equal to the projected size of Europe (717 million) and about twice the 2025 projected size of the United States (World Population Data Sheet, 2006).

However, the region has trailed economically advanced regions in its IT academic research. An important indicator of academic research in a world region is the number and quality of relevant doctoral programs. There are few IT doctoral programs documented within Latin America. In particular, for the ISWorldNet listing of IS doctoral programs, there is none listed in information systems for the region (ISWorldNet, 2006). Another measure is the AACSB-accredited business schools in Latin America, of which there were nine in 2006 (three in Mexico, two in Chile and one each in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Venezuela (AACSB, 2006). Of these only one, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), in Monterrey, Mexico, has a Ph.D. for the AACSB category of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). It is indicative of the thrust of Mexican IT that this doctoral program emphasizes mostly intelligent systems, computer sciences, electronics, and telecommunications, rather than management, organizational, and behavioral aspects (ITESM, 2006).

In Mexico, most IT undergraduate and master level programs are located in engineering schools, rather than business schools as is common in the U.S. and Europe. However, none of these programs offers a doctorate in IT or IS.

In short, Latin America has one or at most only a handful of doctoral program in IT. An implication is that the preponderance of Latin American scholars seeking doctoral training must obtain it in the U.S. or Europe, and certainly outside of Latin America. As in other scientific, engineering, and business fields, many newly-minted IT PhDs settle outside their native region and some never return. Thus, it is not surprising that high-quality IS research originating inside Latin America is limited. As far as we can determine, there is no academic IS journal headquartered within Latin America. This makes it more difficult for scholars in the region to publish in peer-reviewed IT research journals.

Likewise there are not large academic associations of IS or IT researchers within Latin America. This is beginning to change, since a regional offshoot of AIS, the Latin American and Caribbean Association for Information Systems (LACAIS), formed several years ago, is beginning to organize and provide leadership in fostering research and scholarship in the region (AIS, 2006). Another sign of change is that LACAIS is considering founding a scholarly journal that concerns IS/IT research within and related to Latin America. A key question for this journal is whether to publish in Spanish and Portuguese, a step that would open it to a broader regional readership or in English which would have broader global readership. An additional challenge to this initiative is to arrange for Spanish indexing of this journal, as the recognized indexing databases tend to do it for journals published in English. Another example of how research can be stimulated in Latin America is through tracks of mainstream conferences in developed countries, as well as through mainstream journal special issues that are intended to draw out, review, and present/publish research from the region.

For the past six years, the AMCIS Conference has had a Latin American or Spanish track. Its papers have been largely authored by researchers within Latin America, although some are from those based in the U.S. and Europe. Since 2005, papers have been accepted in Spanish or English, are presented in Spanish, and published in Spanish with the author’s option to publish an English version alongside. The 2006 AMCIS Spanish Program resulted in 24 published papers, with authors from six Latin American countries, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, plus the U.S., Canada, and Netherlands, and was an antecedent to the special issue.

1.2 Background: Economic Development Stage of Latin America as a World Region

Background on the economic and social development stage of Latin America and its nations is useful in understanding the status and level of IT in the region. Latin America comprises middle to lower-level developing nations (Population Reference Bureau, 2006). Within its more prosperous nations, there are sectors and organizations that resemble those in advanced countries. For instance, Mexico’s National Statistics Bureau (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, Geografía e Informática) is well-regarded internationally as a national statistics organization. The Mexican firm Cemex is a global leader in its industry thanks in part to the strategic use of technology in its operations. Mexican media firms Televisa and TV Azteca are somewhat comparable to those in advanced nations. The Brazilian software industry has been able to attract American interest because of their strict development methodology and documentation as well as the existence of a good number of IT professionals (Horowitz, 2003). These and other examples demonstrate parts of industry sectors and organizations in these countries that resemble advanced nations. It would not be surprising if Venezuela becomes another important software base since its government has required all government agencies to use only open source software.

On the other hand, Latin America contains considerable impoverished and illiterate population, shantytowns, and a plethora of small informal businesses. Large portions of the population are in poverty, i.e. for the biggest nations, Brazil has 21 percent and Mexico has 20 percent living below two U.S. dollars per day while several smaller countries are over 40 percent (Population Reference Bureau, 2006). The informal economies in these countries account for a substantial part of employment, often over 50 percent and do not contribute to the tax base of these countries. Their businesses employ mostly the poor and are unregulated.

A research implication of this profile is that IS theories, mostly based on advanced nations, may not apply or may need to be modified. Tables 1 gives features of the economic and population structures for Mexico and Peru, and contrasts them with the United States.

Service-learning projects are becoming more prevalent in Information Systems education. This study explores the benefits and challenges of community-based research, a special kind of a service-learning pedagogy, in an IS core course on web development. The paper presents a case study of a service-learning project to develop a second-grade web site by an IS student and an elementary school teacher. The study’s findings show that community-based research promotes student learning and facilitates the adoption and use of web technology by a school teacher. In spite of these benefits, there are social and technological challenges of incorporating community-based research as a service-learning pedagogy in an IS course. The study’s findings have implications for structuring effective service-learning experiences in the IS curriculum.

Service-learning pedagogy integrates academic learning with community service. This form of active learning is becoming more prevalent in higher education as academic institutions strive to enhance student learning while providing service to the community. This study explores student learning outcomes of a service-learning project in an Interactive Web Development course, and the impacts of the community-based research (CBR) process on student learning. According to our findings, we propose an integrated framework of student learning in the context of the service-learning experience. This integrated framework of learning includes multiple dimensions of student development, linking the academic with interpersonal learning outcomes. Furthermore, the community-based research process facilitates student learning as it transforms the student into an active learner. The outcomes of this study provide a strategy for developing service-learning experiences in the Information Systems curriculum.

Outsourcing encompasses the relationship of a company demanding an IT service and a vendor willing to provide that service. Offshore Outsourcing takes advantages of the lower labor cost of IT professionals in another country, India being the classic example. The purpose of this paper is to present outbranching, another alternative to the traditional outsourcing relationship. With outbranching the company demanding IT services opens a branch in other country to provide the specific IT services with similar advantages to those of traditional IT Outsourcing. Using a case-based methodology, this research analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of this new outsourcing paradigm. The main findings are that traditional outsourcing of software development face the following problems: lack of project control, uncertainty of quality of service, limitations to keep high performance professional, among others. On the other hand, outbranching allows higher project control, drastically reduces uncertainty on service quality, allows retaining high performance professionals. Our findings suggest that the advantages of outbranching offset its disadvantages such as start up costs, operational costs, and increased remote management. These finding are important to companies looking for better outsourcing settings and for researchers interested on the IT outsourcing phenomena.

Virtual markets are becoming more and more accepted by buyers and sellers. The success of eBay has prompted other companies to offer auction sites to lure buyers and sellers. The new companies usually offer lower rates to attract virtual sellers thereby multiplying the number of options for virtual buyers. This project presents an exploratory study of the final value available to sellers on two different auction sites, eBay and Yahoo! Auctions. Specifically, the study aims at finding whether or not the leading Internet auction site provides a better opportunity for sellers to extract more consumer surplus by selling goods for higher prices. The statistical analysis shows that in the leading site (eBay,) the number of bids placed is greater, the average final price offered is higher, and the average final value is higher than in the competing site (Yahoo!). These findings are important to virtual sellers and buyers and to new organizations promoting virtual markets.

Technology plays an important role in the everyday life of children born in the ‘digital’ era. The ability to use web technologies in the K-6 educational context opens up new opportunities for teaching and learning. This study investigates the adoption and integration of a web technology into a second grade classroom. The study utilizes a community-based research method to assess the technology adoption decision and the skills, knowledge and resources needed to effectively utilize this digital medium in the classroom and beyond. The study’s context is a collaborative effort between the academic researchers and an elementary school teacher to develop and implement a classroom web site. This project is a pilot to the school-wide implementation of web sites in grades K-6. The study’s findings suggest that the decision to adopt a web technology is based on the need to reduce the technological gap between the students (‘digital natives’) and their teacher (‘digital immigrant’). Furthermore, while this technology has a potential to enrich the students’ educational experience and home-to-school communication, there are social and technological challenges for technology integration. These findings have implications for the elementary school educators interested in using web technologies for teaching and communicating with their community.

This paper studies the telecommunication policies of four Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico) to evaluate the impact of these policies on industry and economic growth. Each country’s telecommunication industry is characterized by consumer welfare (teledensity and the waiting list for a new telephone line), industry outputs (fixed lines, ongoing traffic, cellular subscribers), and capital expenditure. The main findings are that privatization is not the only approach to increase teledensity; the size of the investment in the telecommunication industry is based on a percentage of GDP and/or percentage of telecommunications revenue when the industry is a state-owned monopoly; the waiting list for new lines changes as a result of the fluctuation of the GDP; and the telecommunication policy makers may take different approaches for each telecommunication market segment.

It is well accepted that the telecommunication sector started as a natural monopoly in most countries. Privatization and liberalization policies adopted by some countries in the late 80s and early 90s have led to industry and economic growth. Telecommunication policies have been an instrument for the development and the control of the industry. This paper studies the telecommunication policies of four Asian countries (China, India, Pakistan, and Turkey) to evaluate their impact on industry and economic growth. Each country’s telecommunication industry is characterized by consumer welfare (teledensity and the waiting list for a new telephone line), industry outputs (fixed lines, ongoing traffic, cellular subscribers), and capital expenditure. One of the main findings is that privatization is not the only approach to increase teledensity. For example, China has been successfully promoting local competition without privatizing the industry. The size of the investment in the telecommunication industry is based on a percentage of GDP and/or percentage of telecommunications revenue when the industry is a state-owned monopoly. Also the results show that the waiting list for new lines increases or decreases as a result of the fluctuation of the GDP. Last, the telecommunication policy makers may take different approaches in regard to market segments such as cellular services, value added services, and fixed and long distance services.

This paper describes the impact of Service-Learning (S-L) on the students of a Web development course. S-L requires that students perform a community-based project that allows them to apply the knowledge learned in the course to a real world situation. Proponents of experiential learning claim that deeper contextualized learning takes place because students can practice skills that are hard to simulate in a classroom. However, S-L projects can also be time-consuming and add more work for instructors and students. The findings of this paper indicate that after the S-L project, Computer Information Systems students’ attitudes changed regarding perceptions of clients and enjoyment of the project. Students also demonstrated that they developed communication skills and knowledge of the systems development life cycle.

This paper presents an action research project that was implemented at Cal Poly Pomona to promote the adoption of service learning in information systems courses. Action research, a qualitative research strategy, steadily is gaining acceptance as a sound approach to promote organizational change while achieving research goals. The main findings are that Service-Learning is feasible within the IS curriculum, that the claimed benefits of Service-Learning can be replicated in IS courses, and that action research have a positive impact in developing university-community partnership.

(This paper is an extended version of the paper published in the proceedings of AMCIS 2003.)

This paper tests the impact of differences in culture on telecommuting in the United States and Mexico. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of each country’s culture on the perceptions of telecommuting satisfaction and organizational support for telecommuting. The research questions assess the telecommuting satisfaction, and extent of support by organizational policies for telecommuting in the two countries. These results are compared with the expected outcomes due to the differences in culture in both countries. The tests are done, based on a questionnaire sample of 204 employees in the U.S. and Mexico. The statistical method is crosstabulation analysis. The results show no difference between the two samples regarding job satisfaction. Respondents in the two samples indicate differences on the extent of organizational support for telecommuting. The Mexican sample shows more support for telecommuting arrangements than the U.S. one. This result is unexpected, given the cultural differences in both countries. The findings have implications for telecommuting policies and telecommuting cross-cultural research.

Using a sample of 204 employees in the U.S. and Mexico, this paper results show that telecommuting is perceived to improve productivity by Mexican telecommuters more than by their U.S. counterparts. Respondents in the two nations report differences on the extent of organizational support for telecommuting. No difference between the two samples regarding job performance and job satisfaction were found. Previous researchers have acknowledged limited generalizability of their findings due to the fact that samples were drawn from a single organization or because sampled individuals performed the same type of work. This investigation tried to surmount these limitations by surveying individuals who work for different organizations and who perform different types of jobs. However, this investigation is not exempt from limitations. The study limitations are the narrow demographic profile of the sample, the particular definition of telecommuting utilized, and the non-representativeness of the Mexican and U.S. samples, versus the populations as a whole. In future studies, use of a statistical sample frame, rather than a convenience sample, would remedy this weakness, but be much more costly in time and resources.

Using a sample of 177 employees in the U.S. and Mexico, this paper results show that telecommuters in the U.S. sample report that telecommuting improves their productivity. However, telecommuters in the Mexican sample do not consider that telecommuting improves productivity. On the other three questions, the results show no difference between the two samples regarding job performance, job satisfaction, and the extent of support by organizational policies.

The findings have implications for telecommuting policies of corporations and governments in the two nations. According to these results, Cal Poly students should report higher productivity when they take courses on-line than when they take face-to-face traditional courses.

(Note: This paper is an expanded version of the paper I published last year in the proceedings of the First Global IT/Software Outsourcing Conference)

This research’s findings show that large companies justify initial selective IT outsourcing based on simplified organizational management, improved control over transactions, and/or enhanced efficiency processes in IT. Furthermore, the research findings show that outsourcing experience is the main explanatory factor for selecting an initial selective IT outsourcing provider. Other factors, such as cost and elapsed time, are not relevant in selecting the provider.
The relevance of this study and its findings is that the project results show that the monetary costs of IT outsourcing is not the main decision factor in selecting an outsourcing provider for IT projects.

The purpose of this ongoing study is to investigate faculty experiences teaching varied subject matter using smart classrooms. It is felt that by collecting and comparing the experiences of faculty that have utilized computer technologies in the classroom, that patterns of successful use can be identified. It is hoped that these patterns can inform decisions regarding technology choices, course content development, and training / support for faculty and students.

The main finding of this project is that IT spending has a positive impact on the value of the firm, when the value of the firm reflects the change of ownership or the control of the firm.
This finding is relevant because it rejects the productivity paradox. This paradox claims that investments on IT have no impact on the values of the firm. Several research projects have demonstrated the lack of impact of IT investments on the value of the firm, but none of them has evaluated, as this project did, the value of the firm when there is change of firm’s ownership.

In the early 1990s, the “productivity paradox” triggered a notable academic effort to study the impact of IT on national economies, industrial sectors, firms, and individuals. Taking advantage of the Mexican government’s eleven-year ownership of the banking industry, this chapter examines whether or not IT spending contributes to the productivity and performance of organizations. The federal government’s ownership of Mexican commercial banks during the period from 1982 to 1992 offered an opportunity to empirically study the productivity paradox. During this eleven-year period, each bank in Mexico was required to present its information technology budget to the federal government’s Finance and Planning Office. This policy requirement had the following implications:

Navarrete Carlos J. and Pick James B.(2002) “Initial Selective Information Technology Outsourcing: An Exploratory Study of Large Organizations in México. Proceedings of the First Global IT/Software Outsourcing Conference. Atlanta, GA. March 25-26.

Today more and more large public and private companies are outsourcing information technology (IT) projects (Earl, 1996). There are different factors such as firm size, cost, methodology, background of consultants, etc. that affect the outsourcing decision. The purpose of this paper is to examine and explain the initial decision making process followed by five large Mexican companies when financing outsourcing IT projects. The research findings show that large companies justify initial selective outsourcing through the impact of the project on the organization, e.g. by simplifying organizational performance, improving control over transactions, and/or enhancing high efficiency processes to compete through IT. Furthermore the findings show that for “initial selective outsourcing” of projects that impact IT applications, IT structure, and organizational structure, the main explanatory factor is the experience of the outsourcing provider, while other parameters (i.e., cost and elapsed time) are not relevant in selecting the outsourcing provider.

This chapter examines the success factors for industry-university collaboration through IS industry boards. Based on an in-depth case of industry-academic collaboration in Mexico, the chapter addresses the following research questions: What are the critical success factors for achieving good outcomes from an IS industry board? What factors impede the achievement of good outcomes from such a board in a developing nation? What factors are distinctive and serve to differentiate IS industry boards of developing nations from those of advanced ones? In the case study, the IS industry board enhanced the IS academic program’s curriculum, the university’s computer labs, the student internship program, and faculty training. This case demonstrates that the critical success factors for the IS industry board were top management support, the department chair’s interpersonal skills, board member selection, proper board management, and appropriate university policies regarding industry-university collaboration. Success was impeded by lack of top management backing and behavior factors for a department chair. The experiences of developing and advanced nations for such boards are mostly similar, but differ due to lack of tenure track careers for IS faculty in the developing nation under study.

Navarrete Carlos J. and Pick James B. (2002) “Information Technology Spending Association with Industry Performance: The Case of the Mexican Banking Industry” Journal of Information Technology Management. Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 7-28

Navarrete, Carlos and James B. Pick 2000 “Impact of Information Technology Investments on Organization’s Performance: The Case of Mexican Banks” Decision Science Institute, Conference 2000, proceedings in press.

Navarrete, Carlos and James B. Pick 1998 “Financial Justification of Outsourced Information Technology Projects: The Case of Large Companies in Mexico” Proceedings 9TH International Conference of the Information Resources Management Association, Boston, Ma.